The master of mayhem will be back on the airwaves. Anglo-Grenadian Umbala Joseph has joined Robert Amar’s 104.7.

George “Umbala” Joseph is coming back..

Just a couple of months after completing a brief spell with Iwer George’s 91.9 FM, he  will be joining Robert Amar’s 104.7 FM talk shop, hosting an all day talk programme . The new show is scheduled to have its debut on Emancipation Day, August 1.

Umbala has been a provocative and popular talk show personality since the 1990s when he introduced his rip-roaring ,take-no-prisoners style on Radio 102.1 . He later joined Louis Lee Sing’s i95.5 where he soon fell afoul of the boss and was either suspended or fired on four occasions, which must be a record of sorts. His final sacking occurred last year when it is alleged that he severely criticised Lee Sing in one of his programmes.

He subsequently joined 91.9FM but for reasons that are unclear, he left the station shortly after the May 24 General Election.

The Amar name has been linked in the past with Toyota and it will interesting to see whether Umbala will be in front like the Japanese car

Trevor Boopsingh

Tributes keep pouring in for energy sector expert Trevor Michael Boopsingh who died of cancer earlier this week at the age of 66.

Boopsingh, a close friend of Prime Minister Patrick Manning who, reportedly, was offered the post of Energy Minister, was hailed by the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce as a “visionary”.

Boopsingh, a former Permanent Secretary in the Energy Ministry when Manning was Energy Minister, he was described as “an active member of the Chamber’s Energy sub-committee where he not only served with distinction but he also generously assisted the staff and management of the Chamber.

“He has left us with a great legacy and he will be sorely missed.”

The South Chamber described as a friend of the Chamber and a mentor to many people in the Energy Sector.”

He was also hailed by Petrotrin where he was the first chairman.

Boopsingh was a former lecturer at the University of the West Indies, an author, a director of Neal and Massy and acknowledged authority on the energy sector.

He was a cool, down to earth man, who could be found liming at Harvard Club on afternoon.

After a funeral service at the Fatima R.C. Church, Curepe, on Saturday morning, he will be cremated at the Belgrove Crematorium, Tacarigua.

Farewell, Trevor.

]]> http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/03129/trevor-boopsingh-hailed-funeral-saturday-3/feed/ 0 http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/02955/2955/ http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/02955/2955/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:48:14 +0000 Jeff Hackett http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/02955/2955/

A decade of decline in West Indies cricket

by Vaneisa Baksh, Cricinfo

Nine captains served in more than five tests each.The high turnover rate extended to presidents

and CEOs of the WICB.

No longer formidable as they entered the 21st century, the West Indies cricket team seemed more farce than force. The seeds of the nineties had begun to yield strange fruit. Ripening as the decade turned, they left a bittersweet taste: nostalgia for the brighter days and horror at the unfurling parody. Hardly anyone realised that upward mobility had ceased. Now they were on a plateau of sorts, before slipping off the edge. It took time to recognise the plunge, but there was no mistaking the seminal nature of the scores of Sabina Park 1995. The Waugh brothers, Steve and Mark, scored 200 and 126. Brian Lara went for a duck. Mark Taylor’s men captured the precious Frank Worrell Trophy (and have not yet relinquished it), confirming that West Indies’ slide had gained dread momentum. Yet it took the traumatic South Africa tour of 1998-99 to really hammer it home. In this past decade, the nineties were amplified. Consequences have been more explosive and reactions more drastic, but the trajectory has been the same. Within the bulwarks of the structure of West Indies cricket – administration, performers, governance – the antics remained the same. What might have changed was the external environment, which roiled along merrily, catching West Indies unawares, unprepared, and often with muddy cheeks. The flurry of captaincy appointments in the 2000s – nine captains served in more than five Tests each, and many of them more than one stint – was more of an acceleration of the desperate search for leadership that began when Viv Richards gave up the captaincy in 1991. Although the turnover was not quite so high in the nineties, the position had already assumed an air of transience and contentiousness that seemed to burden its holders. The high turnover rate extended to presidents and chief executive officers of the West Indies Cricket Board. The team suffered from the same instability. With the insouciance of one-night stands, players drifted in and out on a match-to-match basis. Barely knowing each other, and often disliking what they knew, team-mates formed few bonds. Nearly as many players were capped in Tests in the period as in the two decades before it. The impact of these changes of personnel contributed largely to the inconsistency that came to characterise West Indian cricket. Two illustrative points occurred in 2009. The first was the outstanding and consistent successes of the Trinidad and Tobago national team in the Champions League. There is no case to be made that the team had better players than the West Indies team, but it was a team that had played, stayed and trained together over a long period. It was a team abiding under cohesive management, strong in discipline, and sharing a common work ethic infused by its captain, Daren Ganga. The second point was the stark difference in performance between the first and second Tests in Australia in November and December. The inconsistency shone blindingly above the individual performances. Much has been made about the lack of pride, the abandonment of nationalism and the focus on finances as reasons for the falling away. They are contributing factors, but the absence of a stable, nurturing environment is more fundamentally the root of the evils. The West Indian road has been so devoid of direction, policy and strategic intent that no one knows which way is up. From captain to cook, the rules change arbitrarily and disorder makes it impossible for any plan to come to fruition. Publicly, team members have been censured for sloppy performances, preoccupation with income and bling, and unwillingness to put the effort into training and fitness. A story that recently made the rounds was of two team members who had a physical altercation over who was a scab and who would stand for West Indies cricket. Would that have arisen if the issue of loyalty was as alien to players as has been suggested? Yet, while it is true that they have been infuriatingly casual as professional cricketers and too cavalier as representatives of a people, it reflects the environment in which they function.

The West Indian road has been so devoid of direction, policy and strategic intent that no one knows which way is up. From captain to cook, the rules change arbitrarily and disorder makes it impossible for any plan to come to fruition

The WICB has parried its way into the most untenable of relationships with players and administrative staff. Not knowing what to do, it has done nothing but react obfuscatingly to every possibility of development. Caught in a web of mistrust and disagreements, it has fought unnecessary wars on too many fronts. Reneging on contractual agreements, refusing to sort out retainer contracts, selling out sponsors and then exploiting advertising and marketing rights – the board spent a great deal of resources on arbitrations, commissions of enquiry and legal wrangles and mostly came out on the wrong end. Despite the clamour for openness and transparency, it kept itself cloistered under the hubris of absolute ownership of West Indies cricket. Yet even as it would not publicly acknowledge the disapproval directed at it, it could not help feeling anxious about its own survival. When Allen Stanford arrived with his grand Twenty20 tournament plans, it was fear that he was planning an ultimate takeover of West Indies cricket that determined the response to him. It muddied waters and led to needless acrimony among legendary players, until Stanford effectively bought out the WICB with his millions – and even then it was tetchy. What would have happened had Stanford not been hoist by his own petard is anybody’s guess. The WICB found that the projections of windfalls and super legacies from hosting the World Cup in 2007 were not quite as lucrative as they had been led to believe. While some found it profitable, it did not yield nearly enough to refill depleted coffers. Several of the member territories had invested significant portions of their national budgets in preparation for a fairytale ending to the World Cup story. Instead, they were confronted with a global recession that turned their economies upside down. Faced with the prospect of spanking new stadia shrivelling up and dying, the search to recoup may have contributed to the notion of each nation going it alone. The popularity of Twenty20 provided the impetus. The games have attracted supersized crowds, and with West Indian players demonstrating a penchant for the format, it seems natural for this to be the next realm within which West Indies cricket will rise. Whether it will enter that domain as one nation or fracture into its sundry parts has been a growing debate at the end of the century. In frustration with the administrators, public and parochial calls resound for breaking up the West Indian unit. But who would want to watch Test matches played by the teams that would result? The possibility of national teams being fielded for Twenty20 tournaments (as already happens) is more likely. West Indies cricket has been in the doldrums for such a long time, it is difficult to visualise its renaissance. Many have valiantly tried to turn things around; far more have preferred the status quo. At every level, leadership is a diminished franchise, lacking in vision, guts and principles – so far removed from the grace, foresight and integrity of Frank Worrell. There’s been no shortage of activity, but change is a stubborn creature to harness. So reports still languish without implementation, academies still remain a promise, captaincy and all leadership positions are matters of expediency.

The culture of mediocrity has become the dominant culture. Brian Lara, a creature whose excellence floundered within that morass, recently commented that unlike the Australians, West Indians excelled at converting talent into mediocrity. He was speaking at a ceremony where he was awarded an honorary Order of Australia. It came just over two-and-a-half years after he retired from international cricket, and reinforced that he has been the most influential and dominant person in West Indian cricket for more than 10 years. At 40, the honours have been high for Brian Charles Lara, TC, OCC. In Port-of-Spain, a promenade bears his name, so does a massive sport complex (incomplete after five years); an exhibition at the Lord’s Museum celebrated his career in 2007, his retirement year. There is no question that he brought something immeasurably valuable to cricket. Yet he was as much a part of the debilitating environment, and just as susceptible as its other inhabitants. He was accused of being divisive, selfish and temperamental, and some anointed him the root of all the evils. Objectively, Lara’s gifts empowered him phenomenally, and he exploited that power. Were he in a more mature environment, there would have been much more to support and guide his development. His legacy has been mixed. He was for long the sole force keeping interest in West Indies cricket alive, and since his departure the team has struggled to attract international attention. It will be a challenge for young Adrian Barath to grow within the present framework. Most of West Indian cricket’s headline appearances have arisen from the acrimonious disputes between the WICB and WIPA. With WIPA becoming more strident in its calls for contractual arrangements, the clashes between the two bodies escalated often into open hostilities that invariably went to arbitrators, with the WICB losing ground each time. Trust has disappeared between the parties, and the players feel that their employers are not on their side. When the WICB cobbled together an alternative team for the Bangladesh series in 2009 after yet another dispute, they brazenly announced that it was to maintain Test honour. Then without batting an eyelid, they returned Chris Gayle to the captaincy (honour and principle out expediency’s door) for Australia. As a second decade closes with the same problems circling and the same solutions hovering, nothing offers hope of change or turnaround. Despite anxiety, there is little to support the islands going it alone: they simply do not have the resources to do it. What gives more cause for concern is the general waning of enthusiasm for Test cricket. The youngsters are not particularly interested in its rigour, spectators are losing their five-day wonder, and there doesn’t seem to be enough motivation for it to regain any of its stature. It is hardly likely to die, not within our lifetimes, but it is unlikely that it will undergo any sustained resurgence. In the meantime, with West Indies still occupying the lower rungs of the rankings, and with no tangible moves toward infusing any passion or commitment to Test matches, chances are that the wistful dream of a return to Test dominion will never come true. It might well be time for shorter dreams – 20 overs long. Vaneisa Baksh is a freelance journalist based in Trinidad © Cricinfo

PSA has a Duke as leader. The Baptiste-Primus juggernauth has lost favour with the membership.

It looks like the Jennifer Baptiste-Primus hegemony in the Public Services Association is over.

Two days after the powerful union’s internal elections, the winner has not been formally announced but according to chief elections officer Leonard Baldwin, Watson Duke of the “Pioneers” who went up against Stephen Thomas of Baptiste-Primus’ “Reformers” was so far ahead that his lead is irreversible.

Thomas, who was formerly vice-president and ran for the top post because Baptiste-Primus opted out after a decade as president, has complained about irregularities like large numbers of “unregistered voters” being allowed to vote and interference from other trade unions.

Baldwin is hoping that better sense would prevail and that Thomas would concede.

Some word is expected today on the issue.

Baptiste-Primus while not holding any office is head of the union’s construction companies which is building homes for members in St James and East Trinidad.

Union observers believe that she would have still been the power behind the throne but with a changing of the guards her days may be number in the construction company.

Duke, who is in his thirties, is head of the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) branch and successfully took legal action against Baptiste-Primus on a union matter sometime ago.

The overwhelming majority of Vincentian voters gave Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves a stinging slap in the face yesterday in a referendum to change the island’s constitution. With a general election just around the corner, his political future may be in peril.

Dr Ralph Gonsalves suffered a major political setback yesterday as Vincentians voted overwhelmingly against his proposals in a new constitution to dump the monarchy and make St Vincentian and the Grenadines a republic.

He needed 66.7 per cent of the voters to say “yes”: only 43.1 per cent responded while 55.6 per cent voted “nay”. The no vote amounted to 29,019 while those who wanted to become a republic like Trinidad and Tobago totalled 22,493.

It was a humiliating defeat for Gonsalves’ United Labour Party (ULP) which has been in power since 200o and who, simply, gambled on modernising the constitution, making a Vincentian as Head of State rather than Queen Elizabeth 11.

The constitution also contained provisions for an ombudsman and to make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the final court of appeal replacing the Privy Council.

He was in this country last week where he spoke at a constitution reform forum.

Observers felt that the Vincentian Prime Minister’s perceived arrogance and arbitrary behaviour as factors in his defeat and the loss of the referendum is seen as a sign of things to come with a general election constitutionally due next year.

There has been no comment on the results of the referendum either by Gonsalves or Opposition leader Dr Arnhim Eustace.

The transformation of East Port of Spain from an ugly duckling to a glittering inner city has not materialized. The Government has run out of money and those who protested against the ambitious plans can now exhale.

The East Port of Spain Development Company recently embarked on a public relations campaign to show that it was on the job publishing pictures of areas that were bulldozed and so on.

However, it appears the ambitious billion dollar project has become a casualty of Government cutbacks in spending.

The re-development plans announced three years ago had been met with much resistance. Many saw the plans as just another attempt to perpetuate the dependency syndrome among the poorer residents of the community by, as one resident puts it, “providing more goodies for poor people to fight over.”

Those against the plans now see the overgrown lots to the East of City Gate as another unfulfilled promise from politicians.

Several other “re-development” projects ended in failure over the last 40 years. The most memorable were the “Tanks” and Riverside Plaza, both in the vicinity of Picton Road.

The “Tanks” are two huge, ugly, out-of-service cisterns, which were “beautified” under the UNC regime. The area surrounding the tanks was declared a “tourist attraction” and park, but few questioned why anyone would want to go to a park surrounded by squatters’ shacks, mud paths, and a high level of criminal activity. Even then, strangers visiting the area were singled out and questioned or chased away by drug pushers and small-time “gangsters.” Crime in the area was well on its way to what it is today.

The other project, Riverside Plaza, was supposed to be the centrepiece of an ambitious redevelopment project in the 1970s. An office building, shopping facilities, and a multi-storey car park were completed, and slum clearance led to the construction of several blocks of apartments.

Today, workers at the Government offices in the glass-faced tower hurry to and from work to avoid contact with idlers on the corners of the country’s roughest neighborhood, the shopping centre is an empty, abandoned shell, and half of the car park has been converted to a centre for homeless persons.

They are convinced that most of the community’s problems could be traced to undelivered promises made by politicians, state-sponsored programmes and policies gone wrong, or attempts by politicians to keep the community dependent on political patronage.

Many of those murdered in the last five years were employed by the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), which has become notorious for high levels of corruption. While many of the murders have been branded by Police as drug related, it is no secret that not a few are the result of feuds over state-funded development projects.

In the recent past, the refurbishing of run-down apartment buildings by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) led to several killings as residents fought bloody battles over who should and should not be employed in the programme.

The promise of temporary employment in the URP has been used as an inducement by the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) for decades. The temporary nature of the employment (a maximum of 10 days) ensured decades of loyalty to the PNM as it was the only guarantee of an income for many poor households.

When other political parties held the reins of power, they did not undo what they criticised the PNM for in their election campaigns, and tried to buy support in Laventille and other poor communities through the same means.

For both the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and the United National Congress (UNC), the attempts to perpetuate the PNM’s model of dependency and control ended disastrously for the parties and the country: both parties were denied second terms, and the URP has morphed into a monster that not even the PNM can control.

Other Laventille residents feel redevelopment should be welcomed as it was decades ago when, under former Prime Minister the late Eric Williams, the area known as “Shanty-Town” was replaced by Beetham Gardens.

One well-known community activist in support of the plan had this to say: “Remember how John John people felt left out when Eric Williams moved Shanty Town people into new homes into what is now known as the Beetham Estate? “They should let the government carry out their plans, because whatever you want to say about Beetham, it is better than the cardboard and garlic box houses that made up Shanty Town,” he said.

Some Laventille and East Port of Spain residents support redevelopment of all neighbourhoods between the downtown area and Morvant Junction, as they believe it is the only way to break up the criminal gangs that control the areas’ streets.

These residents, few in number, are willing to cooperate with plans to relocate to new housing projects.

They are convinced that the blood bath will continue unabated unless drastic action is taken by Government, and see the breakup of the community, as one East Port of Spain resident puts it, “a small price to pay” to bring crime down and return the entire country to a peaceful state.

But inactivity at the cleared sites, a deafening silence on the issue from the East Port of Spain Development Company, and rumours of serious budget cuts have now brought these once optimistic residents of Laventille and environs to a common position with their fellow residents who are against re-development: They now see themselves as victims of yet another unkept promise.

]]> http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/02285/east-port-of-spain-on-hold/feed/ 0 http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/01865/young-warriors-vs-egypt-in-fifa-under-20-championships/ http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/01865/young-warriors-vs-egypt-in-fifa-under-20-championships/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:05 +0000 TNT Insider Staff http://www.tntinsider.com/?p=1865

TT play in Championship opener. A small contingent will be on hand to cheer them on.

The Trinidad and Tobago Under 20 football team will play today in the opening game of the FIFA Under 20 World Championships at Alexandria, Egypt, against the hosts.

In 1991, the team led by 19-year-old future superstar Dwight Yorke was beaten by Egypt in Portugal in the Under 20 Championships.

This team will be hoping to do much better taking into consideration that several members are already playing professionally in Europe and should bring the necessary experience and maturity.

The boys have played impressively in warm-up games and coach Zoran Vranes appears satisfied at the team’s preparations.

Around 2p.m.(local time) they will be playing before a crowd of 80,000 and can count on the support of FIFA vice president Jack Warner and a small contingent of parents and other supporters.

The team is led by Leston Paul and the expectation is that like the Soca Warriors at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, they would make a lasting impression on spectators.

The aggrieved politician said he got all clear from Ministry of Health. Senate President insists Mark needs another day before he can attend Parliament

The Government demonstrated the extent of its paranoia over the Swine Flu outbreak when it comically debarred an Opposition senator from participating in a sitting of the Senate yesterday.

Wade Mark, leader of Opposition business in the Senate, might blow a lot of hot air in the chamber every week but as far as President Danny Montano and even the Independent senators were concerned this time it could be deadly- at least, potentially bad enough to cause them to end up in a hospital isolation ward.

Mark was a passenger on that “dangerous “American Airlines Flight 1647 which brought two persons with the HINI virus to Trinidad on May 30.

Mark, one of 130 passengers who arrived on that flight, said he was given a clean bill of health, has been attending United National Congress/Alliance (UNC/A) political meetings and so on but was adjudged by a cautious Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch to need another day to be free of the 10-day incubation period.

In other words, Mark would not only be spreading his usual wicked propaganda about the Government but could also be infecting people inside the sanctified chamber.

The irrepressible parliamentarian was not taking that treatment from the Senate.

Resplendent in customary Nehru suit, he complained to reporters outside that the Government was trying to silence him and deny him his rights.

He said he had sought guidance from the Ministry of Health and was assured by, one Dr Chinnia, that he was alright.

“He said Senator Mark you are in the clear the Ministry of Health has cleared you. So I was in shock when I came this morning and I was told by the marshall and a policeman that I cannot enter the Parliament.”

“The police want to arrest me for being in good health. Let them arrest me sir”, he told the Senate.

“And I came here in all honesty, sir not to spread no influenza. Not to spread any virus.”

He, dramatically, complained in a hurt tone: “I have evidence here from the World Health Organisation showing that it is a minimum of two and a maximum of seven. When I spoke to Dr Chinnia, he told me, Mr President, that it is seven days. You are in the clear. Go and do your work. Go and do your business. So I was a bit taken aback that my rights, my freedom, my liberty was being trampled upon this morning when I came here.”

An aggrieved Mark continued to make out his case and spent some 30 minutes in the Senate while the Independents mulled over whether they should stay in the chamber and risk being infected not by Mark’s bad politics but something deleterious to their health.

Montano wanted to know whether members would allow Mark to remain but the Opposition politician, having made his point, spared them the trouble of walking out and picking up his papers left.

The UNC/A leadership took a breather from its in-fighting to condemn “the unlawful employment of mischief and abuse of power” by the Senate President.

Only on Sunday Junior Minister Dr Amery Brown was claiming there was no panic among the Government about the swine flu virus.

In Tobago, it was reported that three women were being tested for the virus after complaining of flu-like symptoms. Two of the women had returned from the United States and one had attended the World Cup qualifying match in Bacolet on Saturday night.

]]> http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/0819/senate-puts-wade-mark-on-swine-flu-watch/feed/ 0 http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/0744/d-day-for-muslimeen-properties-case/ http://www.tntinsider.com/uncategorized/0744/d-day-for-muslimeen-properties-case/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:52:49 +0000 Jeff Hackett http://www.tntinsider.com/?p=744

State to be compensated for damage done by Muslimeen in 1990. Matter may conclude today.

Trinidad and Tobago escaped being turned into the first Islamic state in the Western Hemisphere 19 years ago.

Today, hopefully, closure may be brought to the “financial cost” to the State of that ill-advised adventure by the Muslimeen on that day of infamy, July 27, 1990.

Judge Rajendra Narine will rule on a $32 million bill and this will involve properties owned by the Muslimeen being sold to meet this sum.

Some 11 properties, including the Jamaat Al Muslimeen mosque and buildings on Mucurapo, which was originally State property, and properties on Queen’s Park East, Diego Martin and elsewhere.

There has been a valuation of the properties. The problem among lawyers for the State and the Muslimeen is who will foot this valuation bill before the properties are sold.

The Muslimeen is contending that the Government should foot the bill since it did this previously.

However, the properties are believed to be worth 20 per cent less than the $32 million given the current slump in real estate prices.

Recently, the Privy Council ruled against an allegation by Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr that there was an agreement made by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, pointing out that it would be illegal and unenforceable if proved.